17 August, 2011

Canby Tomatoes




I have the first ripe tomatoes - nanny nanny boo boo
 
 


These are either Early Girl or Oregon Spring
These are my Romas - for stewed tomatoes

We mainly eat these fresh and the rest are canned as stewed tomatoes. I actually cannot eat these in quantity because of my nightshade food sensitivities. But my husband loves them AND  he cooks with them. Stewing them is easy - about the easiest canning you will ever do besides making jam.

You plop them in boiling water for 10 -29 seconds to remove the skin, chop them in quarters, pack tight into a pint-size canning jar, add 1 Tbsp Lemon juice (guarantees your acidity - Ball Blue Book), add a little liquid-if necessary, screw the lids on and process in the boiling water bath canner. That's it. You get a lot of bang for your buck by canning them too. No chemical sprays, no under-ripe fruit (although you don't want to use over-ripe fruit as that messes with your food safety acidity) and no strange chemical preservatives. Seven jars per load and a couple of hours later you will have enough for two people for the next year.

I use pint-size jars as this yields 2 cups and most recipes use two-cup increments for adding tomatoes of any kind. You can get real fancy and spend days concocting some special tomato salsa - but at my house, this super easy way means I can still enjoy the summer.



***nanny nanny boo boo is a particular english technical term
derived from my favorite sewing blog



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